Theo is banking on some of these guys having good to great 1st half of the season...so he can trade them for decent to mediocre prospects..
That's all he is doing...
Then again this offseason...more meh players that he will trade away next season for crap....
At some point cubs cant rely on farm system to produce everyone...the Cubs WILL HAVE to sign quality FA's to fill in the gaps...Cubs are years away from contending..Hell, there years away from being .500 club
I agree with the fact that you need to sign FA's in addition to improving the farm. I don't think Theo really intends to trade all that many pieces because nobody on the team has value outside of the "Future core". That is referring to Castro, Rizzo, Samardzjia, and maybe Barney. Castillo is a young piece I am sure they want to see grow.
Sure they could trade some guys like DeJesus but that would require another team wanting DeJesus which I don't see happening. We could possibly be able to trade some of the starters like Villanueva or Wood but that's probably it. I don't think anyone will want Baker or Garza based on injuries or Feldman, because well he isn't very good. Soriano is the only guy I could see having any true value unless Garza gets healthy soon.
However, I think the Cubs could contend for a WC spot in 2015. Our biggest holes at the ML level are 3B, and all 3 OF spots. The good thing is are top 4 prospects could fill those positions. And 3 of those guys are upper echelon guys in Soler, Almora, and Baez. All experts rank them in the top half of the top 100 prospect lists. Now those lists are far from perfect, but is still nice to see Cubs players mentioned in the same list as some of the best prospects in the game. That hasn't happened in awhile.
We also have the #2 draft pick this year and the 2nd highest amount to spend in the draft. We should be able to get a close to ML ready SP with that #2 pick. Hopefully Appel but the Astros could easily take him. From what I hear this is a deep draft from a pitching standpoint. I think this upcoming offseason we actually may see some big spending. However, with 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, and OF taken up by our young talent in the ML or minors I don't think that will come in the lineup outside of a smaller 1 year pickup.
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